Well, we get about 800 emails per month from listeners like you, 800 email questions.

And I wish we could answer more of the questions.

And we do our best to keep up.

Here's today's question.

Hello, Pastor John.

My name is Pedro and I pass your church in Granada, Spain.

I would like to ask if there's a danger in Christian hedonism, confusing joy and faith.

There are dangers everywhere.

It would be a mistake to simply make joy and faith identical.

Not because faith doesn't include delight in God, but because faith, as the Bible presents

it, is more than delight in God.

So I've spent most of my ministry trying to get people to experience faith in such biblical

fullness that it has joy in God as its essence.

And so yes, the danger exists that this will be misunderstood as being the same as faith.

If I say it's the essence of faith, people might say, well, then it's the same as faith.

So let me say a few things that I hope will minimize that danger and clarify what I mean

by faith, including joy in God, but being more than joy in God.

Historically, and I think this goes back at least to the Reformation, I think to the

fathers, saving faith has been seen as these three things.

The Latin words, notitcia, knowledge, ascences, ascent, a fiduciusia, trust, those three together

make up saving faith.

Faith has an object that it knows and faith ascents to the truth and the reliability of that

...